On Southeast Engine's long-awaited third album, Coming to Terms with Gravity
the Athens music scene's veterans stick to their familiar introspective style, but offer a revised and reinvented sound.
After spending a year in the studio -taking a four-month hiatus during the rebuilding process of 3 Elliott Studio, where the album was recorded and mixed -fans finally will get a taste of the new Southeast Engine at their CD release party Friday at The Union, 18 W. Union St.
A lot of the songs on the record that is coming out they range from edgy to dark to spiritual to hopeful to despairing. There are all these mixtures of stuff and a lot of times there is not a resolution
guitarist Josh Antonuccio said.
The group's difficult-to-compare music emulates folk ballads and melody-driven Americana rock songs that would find a comfortable place on the iPods of any troop of college students on a long road trip to the beach this summer.
Southeast Engine's focus and strongest element is its songwriting. Once centered on repetitive snare rolls and lyrics about interpersonal relationships, each member has contributed to the band's evolution of its sound and lyrics.
There is an eclectic range of influences from each of the five members
and I think it has a unique
diverse sound. It's not punk; it's not jam band
drummer Leo DeLuca said.
We write out of who we are rather than who others think we should be
and we try to really shape the sounds around what the song calls for
Antonuccio said.
The band produced two albums before -Love is a Murder
a Mystery of Sorts in 2003 and an EP entitled One Caught Fire in 2004 -but neither captured the full potential of the band
said Antonuccio, who was not a member of the group until it began recording the new album.
Southeast Engine has gone through several roster changes since it was formed in 1999, but the two original members, lead vocalist and guitarist Adam Remnant and DeLuca, managed to stick together.
DeLuca said they owe their success to their camaraderie and describes the group as brothers and awesome friends.
The current band includes Remnant, DeLuca, Antonuccio, keyboardist Michael Lachman and bass player Matthew Box.
These guys are appendixes. We chopped off the original frame of the house and put on these appendixes. Like the Bentley Appendix? Wait
